LGB STAINZ - The Train Sets, Year 1996

The year 1996 was a year of train sets in general for LGB. The LGB main catalog even advertised a Stainz train set:

LGB catalog front cover 1996 -
Courtesy of  lgb-trains.com/lib

However, most of the offered train-sets did NOT sport Stainz engines but  LGB 2017 derivations  with cars from the standard LGB stock. In 1996 LGB, meanwhile under leadership of Rolf Richter, focused intensely on sales increase. That led to another round of specialty series in small edition volumes. The undisputed leader here was the 

LGB 29210

LGB 29210 - Courtesy LGB Kompendium pg 1254

With only 50 (!) sets of this specialty it was made for the 10 year anniversary for the "LGB Club - Friends of the Lower Rhine River" and was solely sold to the members of that LGB club. YT could not find one single lead/link on the internet for this item. And yet, back then the club was powerful enough that LGB gave this Stainz Train set its very own item number.

The next specialty set was (again) made for the toy-retailer association "Idee + Spiel" (Idea + Play) with an edition of 1,000:

LGB 70417

The set consisted of a LGB 2020D, a  LGB 4011 covered flat car in brown (usually offered in orange) and a LGB 45352 Coca-Coal box car with no sound (usually w/sound)

LGB 2020D - Courtesy of picclick.com

LGB 4011 in brown - Courtesy of eBay.com/uk

LGB 45352 - Courtesy of gbdb.info

This set also included a set of rails, transformer and figurines. Why the association chose a set like this or was given it remains a puzzle. The association served toy retailers whose main target group were parents of smaller children ( 6-10) and it was common belief among parents back then that Coca Cola was not a beverage that should be served to young children on a regular base. It was quite expensive, too with a price of about DM 395.00 or about US$ 250.00, which translates to about US$ 500.00 today.

The main competition to that association was the "VEDES" group who received their own Stainz set with the

LGB 70418

LGB 70418 (VEDES) - Courtesy of ebay.com/kleinanzeigen

A set similar to this was offered on ebay in January 2022 for US$ 160.00 and did not get any offers! Obviously nobody knew about the rarity of this set. The edition volume for this set was 2,500 and was sold solely in stores that were a member of this Vedes Group.

The next set was made for an Austrian company and one of those sets did survive until today and is even currently available:

LGB 70515

This rarity was called the "Jaegerndorfer Sammel-Set" (Huntersvillage Collector Set), the edition volume is unknown. It is currently ( Feb 22, 2022) for sale by http://www.gartenbahndesign.at/?page_id=1410 for EU 250.00 or US$ 289.00 (shipping costs unknown). It can be safely assumed that the edition was not bigger than 2,000 sets.

Another Stainz set in limited edition, this time of 1,000 was the 

LGB 70516/ LGB 71418

LGB 70516 - Courtesy of grootspoor.com

The Unimog car and the construction trailer were not made by LGB. This set was made for an Austrian importer, edition was 1,000. LGB listed this set under two different item numbers, reasons are unknown.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++ to be continued...